


Loose Ends

by smallerthanzero



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: GOTG2 Spoilers, Gen, hopefully there will be more chapters, writing about things because people are hard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-16
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-01 07:36:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10917297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallerthanzero/pseuds/smallerthanzero
Summary: An attempt to pick up some items that got dropped through the cracks in Vol. 2, from yahru root to Ravager swag to the majority of Drax's personal belongings.Chapter 5: "Figured you’d like the full collection, so in case you ever get tired of hollering stories about stealing crap, you can do yourself a favor and listen to some ELO, alright?"





	1. Spacesuit (only one left)

It’s a while before Rocket can stop thinking about spacesuits.  
  
Doesn’t matter where he goes – scrounging the ship for supplies with his team, rigging up some artificial light so Groot has something good to eat even if the rest of them are stuck with lumpy nutrient rations till this hunk of space trash makes it to the nearest habitable planet, squeezing into the smallest, darkest corner of the _Eclector_ so the fur on his back and his whiskers are brushing cold metal and it feels like freezing, like suffocating, like it must have felt to –  
  
Point is, he wants everyone he knows and cares about to be as far away from the frickin’ void of space as possible, and building something new is the best way to make that happen.  
  
He keeps turning over the designs in his head; he needs to make a bigger field, big enough to hold a full-size Groot, big enough for a Terran and Centaurian, maybe even big enough to hold all five Guardians at once – crap, six, including Mantis – seven if that scrawny Kraglin guy sticks around. And what if they pick up someone else? More innocents to protect? Someone’s going to have to decide who gets left behind, and if the rest of the team keeps developing _consciences_ he’s pretty sure it’s going to be him. Just more evidence that he can build whatever he wants, but he’s always going to end up with the short end of the stick.  
  
Someone knocks on the vent grate he’s cozied up behind, sending all his fur up on end. “Rocket? We need to talk.”  
  
It’s Gamora. Last time they talked went along the lines of _how could you_ and _he wouldn’t leave you_ and _you left a Ravager captain to save him instead of doing it yourself, you coward._ He’s not too keen on finishing that conversation, but he must be a glutton for punishment cause he gets out of the vent anyways. “Yeah, I guess we do.”  
  
They look each other over, and Gamora does that almost-smile that means she’s letting herself be amused. “Your fur is dusty.”  
  
“Everything on this junkpile is dusty. It’s a Ravager ship, they ain’t exactly big on cleaning services.”  
  
The smile slips off Gamora’s face, and she crouches, holding out a hand in silent question. Rocket grits his teeth a bit, but he nods and lets her brush the worst of it off his head and ears. She scratches his head just once, hesitantly, when she’s done, and normally he’d twist away and snap something about copping a feel.  
  
Today, he mumbles a quiet thanks and lets her hand stay there as she starts to talk. “I shouldn’t have been angry with you, Rocket. You made the right call when I was too attached to do it.”  
  
He huffs. “I ain’t unattached, Gamora. Just selfish.”  
  
Both her eyebrows go up, weirdly similar to Quill when he starts trying to prove a point with his face instead of his words. “You knew I was going to try and kill you as soon as the taser wore off, right?”  
  
“I figured,” Rocket smirks.  
  
“Not selfish at all, then. Maybe even brave.”  
  
“I left Quill and Udonta down there with just one spacesuit, Gamora,” Rocket says, shrugging out from beneath her hand. “Not much you can say to make that better.”  
  
“You gave them exactly what they needed, Rocket. A way out.” She pauses. “Yondu could not have passed more honorably. You did that for him. I would not have been so kind.”  
  
“You spend a night locked in a cell with a guy, you get attached, I guess,” Rocket mutters. “Worked for you suckers, anyway.” Oops – guess he can only stand being nice for so long.  
  
Gamora’s got that half-smile on her face again as she moves to stand. “A cell? We have a lot to catch up on. Also, Groot’s lighting is broken.”  
  
Together, they head back to the main decks. Screw spacesuits, Rocket’s got actual people to worry about now – takes a lot more effort, but if it nets him Gamora’s approval he’s pretty sure it’s worth it.


	2. Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (those songs belong to me)

He’d kind of thought that he was done being angry at Yondu, but dang it all if that grandstanding blue finhead hasn’t managed to piss him off from beyond the grave. “What do you mean, _he blew up the ship?_ ”  
  
Kraglin shrinks back, just a little. It might be the first time a Ravager’s made anything near a deferential motion towards him, and Peter abruptly remembers that Kraglin’s telling him about the loss of _his_ own home too, not to mention his family for the past thirty-odd years. ‘Course, Kraglin’s probably too old and experienced to care about that kind of thing, but his gaze is just a little too wide and a little too wet as he claps a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Sorry, Pete. You know how cap – I mean Yondu – was when he got to gearin’ up for revenge.” His eyes settle back on Peter, expression almost wondering. “Revenge ‘gainst everyone ‘cept you, I guess.”  
  
Peter drags a hand over his face and through his hair. “Yeah, I know. Look, Krags, I - I gotta go do some stuff, okay?”  
  
“Sure.” Kraglin shrugs and heads up towards the cockpit. “I’ll send out some messages, see if we can’t find you another M-ship.”  
  
Peter doesn’t want another M-ship, he _wants_ all his stuff back. His Walkman and the tape inside it are gone thanks to Ego, and everything else on board the _Milano_ is just ash now, more corpses among those that littered the _Eclector_ ’s walkways. The sinus-stripping alcohol he’s been saving for a special occasion, his candy that Rocket and Groot keep stealing, his tape deck –  
  
The tape inside the deck, which he took out and –  
  
He sprints through the corridors, boots skidding on worn metal flooring, blood pounding through his ears like a music all its own. Runs from the ghosts of Yondu and Ego and his ship, fast as he can, until he finds what he’s looking for: his jacket, Ravager red like most of the leathers he owns ‘cause good clothing’s too valuable to ditch, thrown across the foot of the bunk he’s been sleeping in the past few nights.  
  
And in the left inner pocket, right where he put them before leaving his ship for the last time, there they are. Cradled in his shaking hand, the letter from his mom and the tape with ‘Awesome Mix Vol. 1’ scrawled across the label look so small and old, speckled with sand from Ego’s planet.  
  
He brushes his thumb across his name at the top of the letter and lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding. She’s still here. Ego didn’t completely destroy her.  
  
(Usually he’d never bring both tapes off the _Milano_ at once – too dangerous. But he’d figured that his dad would want to listen to them too, to trace the neat lines of his mom’s writing. Groot, climbing up his jacket for a proper goodbye hug, had stuck a tendril into the pocket, felt out the blocky shapes of both Awesome Mixes, and promptly started bawling. Took almost five minutes and endless reassurances of _we’ll be back_ before he’d even let go of Peter.)  
  
He sticks the tape and the letter back in his jacket and pulls it on over his shirt. Then, before he can really think about it, he takes the Zune Yondu gave him, wraps the headphones neatly around the dull plastic of the device, and sticks it in the same pocket. His momma’s soul and Yondu’s care for him, both nestled together in the safest place he has for them.  
  
Peter’s not an ungrateful kind of person – he’ll keep gifts from his parents as long as he possibly can.


	3. Zune & Yondu’s Trinkets (he’d want to you have it)

Kraglin’s curled up in a storage room, trying to convince himself that if he goes to sleep he isn’t going to wake up on the wrong side of an airlock, when he hears something big coming down the hallway. Sounds weird too, like someone’s dragging their boots and half the ship’s artillery on the floor. 

He opens the door a crack. It’s their newest recruit, dragging something behind him – is that a _desk_?

It is. Fact, it’s the desk from right outside Yondu’s – captain’s – cabin, for strategy meetings and the like. The twig’s moved past his door by now; thinking quickly, he leaves the closet, tiptoes round the nearest corner, and stomps loud as he can on the way back. 

Desk’s still there. Twig’s not. Good. Dragging that clunker back where it came from’ll probably wake half the crew – and who knows how and why the little thing moved it in the first place, and how many people he disturbed. Morbidly curious, Kraglin heads for the captain’s cabin to see if anyone’s awake.

There’s a Ravager propped up on the doorway, his loud snoring muffled only by the fact that his face’s sunk halfway between his knees. He steps over him, all his weight neatly balanced on the balls of his feet, and surveys the drunken mounds of slobbering that tend to follow a Ravager party. 

Then he spots the twig, spindly arms pulling a metal trinket from a drawer with the Ravager flame stamped on it. 

He knows what’s in that drawer. 

“That ain’t it,” he mutters, more to himself than anything else. Next thing he knows, he’s staggering forward as the twig decides ‘it’ is his boots and latches around them, tiny face pursed up in a scowl as it attempts to bowl him over. 

Normally he’d think it was kind of funny, but Taserface is wallowing on his captain’s bed and things are about as far from normal as he cares for them to get. He stumbles wildly, arms flailing out for balance. “Cut it out, you stupid stick!” he hisses, quiet as he can. “I ain’t gonna hurt you, promise. I know where the fin is!” 

The little bugger’s eyes widen in recognition, whether of ‘fin’ or of ‘stupid stick’ – hey, if the thing’s being raised by Quill and that smack-talking furball, he doesn’t know what kind of language it’s used to. Nevertheless, he softens his tone a bit. “There we go, tha’s it. I’ll help you. Didn’t I make ‘em leave you alone before?” It’s true – after watching all the crew he calls friends get spaced and coming _this close_ to getting bludgeoned by one of the bluest and scariest assassins in the galaxy, he didn’t have much of a stomach for beating something that little and scared up. And maybe he isn’t first mate anymore, but everyone on board knows he’s good with his fists and better with a knife; when he told them to leave the twig alone and get pissed somewhere else, they hadn’t figured to stop listening to him yet. ‘Specially as he’s the one who started this mutiny in the first place. _Flark_.

The twig finally lets go of his boots and jumps onto his arm instead, climbing up till it’s cuddled between his neck and shoulder. “I am Groot,” it says, quiet as anything, and holds out a scrap of cloth. It’s too close to make out. He squints a little and it resolves into a Ravager patch – where does the twig _get_ these things?

At least now he can be sure it’s Yondu behind all this. Patch is too big to be anyone else’s. “Okay, Groot,” he says, picking up the red fin and nervously scuffing the dirt out of one of its crevices. “You found it. Yondu’ll be real proud of you, don’t worry.” Then he makes to close the drawer. Less clues for Taserface to follow, the better. Man’s an idiot, but everyone on board knows Yondu’s got a backup fin works just as well as the real one.

But before he can slide the drawer shut, his eye catches on a lump of black plastic – the ear-things for the player Yondu got for Quill. 

Quill wasn’t on the _Milano_ when they’d picked it up. Sure as anything Yondu’s gonna want to know why soon as he gets off the _Eclector_. Quill’s a prick, sure, but his present is in a place of honor, in the drawer with all of his favorite trinkets. Even Kraglin’s only been allowed to look inside a couple times. And sure, it still pisses him off. He’s been first mate since before Quill could even fly an M-ship, and Yondu’s never bought him anything. 

But a little favoritism ain’t worth a mutiny. Ain’t worth dead friends, and delivering Yondu back to a past he’s only heard bits and pieces of in drunk ramblings and nightmares.

He knows Yondu’ll burn this ship up before he lets word of the mutiny get out. The only home he’s known in decades, gone up in flames. He could stop it – break the fin, ditch the twig, and go back to his closet. But even that won’t put everything back the way it was. No way out but through, and if he doesn’t get back on Yondu’s good side, no way out at all. 

Kraglin eyes the drawer thoughtfully. 

“One second, tree. Cap’n’ll need a few more things from here.” The twiggy thing obligingly takes the fin from him, and Kraglin very carefully starts shoving junk into his pockets. Quill’s present, a tiny green elephant, a bitty candle in the colors of Ravager fireworks. The troll doll takes the place of honor in his breast pocket, the little head peeking out. With any luck, that’ll keep Yondu from arrowing straight through his heart the moment he gets his replacement fin. 

He lets out a shaky breath, squares his shoulders, and goes to face his captain. 

***

Before Kraglin’s ears stop ringing from the explosion, the guy with the fur and the teeth – Rocket, he thinks – leaps up onto the back of a chair, Groot on his shoulder. “Hey, spikehead.”

Kraglin guesses that’s him. “Yeah?”

Rocket’s whiskers twitch. “Look, Groot says without you we’d still be stuck in that shithole, so I’m gonna do you a favor.”

He knows how favors work, so Kraglin crosses his arms and twitches his face right back. “Long as I’ve got cap’n’s favors, don’t need none of yours.” 

“I am Groot,” Groot says, and Rocket nods, teeth bared in something that could be a grin or a threat – not that the two aren’t the same, far as Kraglin knows. 

“Yeah, he’s tryin’ to be smart.” His eyes track back to Kraglin. “But you’re gonna want this favor.”

“What is it?”

“When we find Quill and the others, I won’t tell ‘em how this whole mutiny thing started. And you don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to, neither.”

That… is actually a favor worth having. Long as he’s got Yondu’s trinkets on him he probably won’t get an arrow through the head (if he keeps his jacket on, anyways), but that doesn’t mean protection from Quill. Or any of his bigger, scarier, more colorful friends. He’s met Nebula, and if _she’s_ been regularly beaten by that green chick on Quill’s crew - “That’s real nice of you, Rocket. Thanks.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re just lucky this little guy likes you,” he says, nodding at Groot. “Oh, and one more thing. Next time you see someone getting hustled out an airlock and you don’t like it? Do something about it, you idiot.”

Kraglin thinks briefly of Rocket taunting Taserface, egging on the rest of the crew, till their attention turned from Yondu. Now there’s a person who deserves to be a Guardian of the Galaxy. “I will, swear it. No more mutinies from me, no sir.”

“Good,” Rocket says, and hustles back over to Yondu. Groot waves at him over a furry shoulder. 

Kraglin straps himself in and thinks that it might be nice to work for the kind of people who don’t believe in mutinies, for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After watching the movie and reading Write_like_an_American's amazing characterization of Kraglin, I have to say I'm curious as to what makes this guy tick (not to mention how that troll doll ended up on Yondu's funeral pyre).


	4. Yahru Root (it's not ripe yet, and I hate you)

Gamora has learned many things in the months since she stood and pledged her friendship to a group of idiots. 

She has learned to dance: reluctantly, in private, and only to assess and improve Peter’s dexterity. 

(It has nothing to do with how gentle his hands are on hers, how his eyes light up every time she lets the rhythm dictate her movement, like the combination of his music and her joy is all he will ever want in life).

She has learned to sharpen knives in the way taught to Drax by his parents: in open sight, he tells her, so her team will trust the sharpness of her blade, and with the knowledge that each swing in battle brings death to one and life to many. 

(It is, apparently, adapted farming advice, once used for harvesting grain to feed Drax’s village. She remembers little of her parents, let alone their teachings on honing a sharp edge. Maybe the lives she saves, the chance for more children to learn from their parents, will be enough to make up for that hard truth).

She has also learned how to accurately assess the general level of threat when someone starts swearing. So when Nebula twitches to a stop mere meters from the smoldering remains of her ship and snarls an invective regarding Thanos’ reproductive organs, Gamora does not immediately draw her weapons. Neither does she dive for cover, assuming that Nebula has spotted a trap. Instead, she uses her standard response to the constant chaos that is life aboard the _Milano_ : “What now?”

“The yahru root from your ship - I stole it,” Nebula says. Her eyes dart sideways - she thinks this will make Gamora angry. “I was going to eat them over your bullet-ridden corpse and spit the seeds into your grave.”

 _You’d have spat the whole thing out - they still weren’t ripe_ , Gamora wants to say. Unfortunately, this requires her to picture her sister hurtling through jump points and deep space to carry out her revenge, accompanied only by her burning rage and a basket of raw root vegetables. And then spitting said root vegetables out in disgust. 

She bites her lip.

“Are you choking?” Nebula asks suspiciously. The firelight glints over her metallic implants, rendering her fierce even as her voice rises in childish confusion. “What are you doing? Stop it!”

Gamora is laughing, actually, and Nebula’s bewilderment makes it even harder to stop. She’s not surprised that Nebula doesn’t recognize the sound; Thanos and his compatriots don’t care much for humor. 

She takes a deep breath, banishing the heady feeling. “I don’t understand - why does it matter? There’s plenty of food here.”

“It doesn’t,” Nebula snaps. She stalks forward again, tension in every muscle, and then snaps to a halt once more. Gamora crosses her arms and waits - Nebula has always been the impatient one, the angry one, and now that she knows _why_ it’s not nearly so hard to be patient. 

“You bought raw yahru root,” Nebula finally grinds out, “on purpose.”

“There wasn’t any ripe yahru root in the market, and I wanted to eat some.”

“You had access to an entire market and you picked a stupid raw vegetable.” Nebula refuses to look at her.

“They’re worth waiting for. You know that, you’ve eaten them before on Praxha.”

“And you had the time to wait.” Her voice drops abruptly to a murmur - Gamora’s aural enhancements are sufficient to hear her, of course, but it’s a near thing. “You never waited for me.” 

“You were jealous of a basket of vegetables?”

“No!” Nebula’s back to snarling. “I had the time, so I took them, and now I - I _want_ them!”

 _I want something besides revenge_ , Gamora hears. She brushes a chunk of rock from her hair and smiles. 

Under Thanos, meals were mostly nutrient rations. When she could, she would steal the ripest fruit or vegetable she could find and eat it in quick, ravenous bites, afraid that Thanos would somehow find out this small pleasure and take it from her. 

(He did ask once. She told him that men liked to watch her eat fruit, and, fool that he was, he believed her. Even gave her one, juicy and red, to catch the attention of whoever brought the Infinity Stone to Xandar.)

Now she can savor every bite, every experience, every lesson. She fights for that and the family that teaches her as she should have fought for Nebula long ago, and they will fight for her. And for Nebula, if she asks them to.

“Someday we’ll go out together and find the most unripe food we can,” Gamora promises, “and we’ll wait for it to ripen together.”

Nebula’s face, broken and enhanced and violated but _hers_ in a way Gamora has never seen before, twists into the smallest of smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This movie has so many layers that even _the vegetables_ give me feels.


	5. Eclector's clones of Peter's music (happen to have any?)

Yondu’s resigned himself to babysitting his cargo-turned-thief Terran whenever the kid gets taken out on a job, but doing it onboard as well is too much to ask from anyone, let alone a Ravager captain. 

And yet, during a raging celebration of the crew’s biggest haul in months, Quill is nowhere to be found and no one’s seemed to notice except himself.

He doesn’t need to do it. Doesn’t particularly _want_ to do it. But somehow, he still ends up ducking out from under Gef’s arm and scanning the mess hall for a shock of ginger hair. 

Said hair is harder to spot than usual, closer to the ground than it should be, and for one burning second he thinks that the kid’s collapsed. He purses his lips, readying a whistle that’ll have everyone out of the way almost faster than his arrow can fly.

Then the rest of his drink-addled brain catches up, and he realizes that Quill’s just sitting cross-legged in the corner, ear-deep in his music.

Quill should be celebrating with the rest of them. It’s the first time he’s been of any use as a thief, and he certainly hadn’t stopped bragging all the way back to the _Eclector_. He’s even let the kid buy some creamy sweet thing, chilled into enticing swirls with orange powder sprinkled on top. 

(He’d have given the kid some liquor instead if there was any chance at all he’d be a quiet drunk, but he’s yet to find an experience that doesn’t have the kid bouncing off the walls or moping for days. At least this way he won’t complain about the taste.)

Quill's fingers are drumming against the floor, the way they do when he's thinking about what he wants to say - or, more often, what lie he's going to try and make Yondu believe this time. Yondu stalks over and raps on one of the orange circles covering his ears. 

Quill, still _tap-tap-tap_ ing away, cranes his head high enough to see the glint of Yondu’s metal teeth and reluctantly peels his headphones off. “What do you want?” 

“What’chu doing, boy?” Yondu barks. “Go enjoy yourself! Don’chu know Ravagers tell better stories when they’re drunk?”

Quill makes a face. “I’m thinking,” he says slowly, “that my mom wouldn’t want me to celebrate stealing stuff.”

Yondu growls, reaching down to shake Quill by the ear. “What’ve I been telling you ‘bout sentiment, boy? If you spend all your time listening to your songs and thinkin’ about Terran morals, you ain’t gonna be of any use here.”

Quill’s jaw takes on a stubborn slant and Yondu hastily decides that sentiment or not, a wailing Terran is the last thing his inebriated eardrums need. “Listen,” he says, crouching to pat the kid’s shoulder, “an’ I’ll show you some real music for a change.”

He stands and turns to his crew - not that they’re paying attention at the moment. Tulk’s slumped over a table, crooning into his mug, and Brahl’s spinning Half-Nut around in a dance that seems to involve more head-bashing than actual foot movement. “Hey, idiots!” he bellows, and the mess hall quiets. “Lil’ Quill needs a lullaby, so why don’t we give ‘im a Ravager classic?” 

Bodies shift as his men sit up straighter, grins breaking out as they pound out a beat on the walls, the tables, the floor. Quill leans forward in obvious interest, and Yondu can’t resist winking at him as he joins the beat and launches into the first verse. 

_‘Twas once a certain planet_  
_Where the Ravagers came to call_  
_For they heard a mighty treasure_  
_Lay behind a palace wall_

_An’ a Nova Guard stands watch each night_  
_And drains his mug of dregs_  
_To guard the king’s most precious treasure_  
_What sits between his legs!_

There’s a lot of stomping and shouting, rhythmic as a drunken lot of Ravagers can get, and the requisite howls of laughter as the king’s treasure is revealed to be a six-legged beast that he’s in love with. Yondu belatedly realizes that most of the more salacious turns of phrase will go right over the kid’s head and looks down to gauge his response.

Quill’s absolutely beaming, pounding the beat with one tiny fist on the floor, and on the third repetition of the chorus he joins in with the rest of them. Yondu tugs him to his feet, watching in amusement as the sound practically vibrates through his small frame.

The shanty ends with a rousing cheer, and as the crew returns to sucking down every drop of alcohol on the ship Quill tugs at Yondu’s sleeve.

“That was awesome! I’ve never heard that many people sing at the same time before!”

“If we ever went to a Ravager gathering,” Yondu says, not a little bitterly, “you’d hear the whole hundred clans yowling something or the other once they get a couple drinks in ‘em.” 

“My music’s still better though.”

“Really,” Yondu replies, giving in to the sudden urge to drain his cup and looking longingly at that of a passing Ravager.

“Yeah! They’d sound even better if everyone sang them together!”

“No one’s heard them songs but you, boy, and your singin’ ain’t exactly encouraging anyone to join in.”

Peter frowns. “How come everyone knows the Ravager songs?”

“‘Cause everyone sings ‘em. We’ve got ‘em loaded into the ship’s mainframe too, ‘cause some of the crew like to listen to ‘em on the way to a job.”

Peter taps his Walkman thoughtfully. “Can we put my songs on the mainframe too? So people can learn them?”

“Sure, Quill. Now get out of this corner and go find me something to drink.”

***

Twenty five years later, Yondu’s scrolling through the galactic newsfeed when a notification pops up in the corner of his datapad. He frowns. 

It’s a direct message from one of the many forums he pulls missions from. Job’s marked retrieval, which is hardly unusual in the Ravager line of work, and the listed pay ain’t bad either. Weird thing is that someone wants him, specifically. It’s uncommon, enough so that the majority of direct messages in his unemptied inbox are a date and a planet and rough coordinates and the name of a child -

He jabs at the message with a little more force than necessary, rewarded with a line of text and a pulsing play button. 

_Ha! I knew you’d open this. Please don’t delete it until you hear the message -Starlord_.

Yondu rolls his eyes and jabs the play button too for good measure, leaning back in his chair as a familiar voice fills his cabin.

“Hey, Yondu… uh, I know we didn’t exactly part on the best of terms, but I got my own crew to look out for now - or a whole galaxy, some days - and I guess you know what that’s like. Except I can’t shoot them or tell them I’m gonna _eat them_ or anything. Not that I’d ever want to, ‘cause I’m a _normal person_ , but I gotta tell you, sometimes Rocket really-” Quill pauses abruptly, like he’s just now remembering he ain’t on night shift, the two of them alone with their boots up on the console as he complains about someone mouthing off at him during a raid. “Anyway, turns out I had a second mixtape with me all along! And don’t think I didn’t see you tappin’ your foot to Come and Get Your Love that one time on Contraxia. I know you got a thing for Terran music somewhere in that blue chest hole of yours. Figured you’d like the full collection, so in case you ever get tired of hollering stories about stealing crap, you can do yourself a favor and listen to some ELO, alright?” He pauses again, and if he listens close enough Yondu can make out the _tap-tap-tap_ of Quill drumming his fingers. “Ugh. Just… stay sharp, you big jerk. Arrow _and_ brains.” A quiet laugh, the same way he laughs every single time he makes that joke and Yondu gives him his best unimpressed stare, and the recording abruptly cuts off.

_Ain’t the Terran_ music _I got a thing for, boy_ , Yondu thinks, and then abruptly directs his gaze to the attached files below Quill’s message. The first one’s labeled Mr. Blue Sky, and it’s got a smiley face next to it. 

He uploads that one first so he can listen to it while he takes care of the rest of the songs. Tune’s pretty catchy, he’s gotta admit. Liable to get stuck in his head.

He guesses that’s a Terran thing.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading my first ever fic! I'd really appreciate kudos, comments, criticism... feedback of any sort, really.


End file.
